Roads
by Leks Bronks
Summary: The outbreak has reached the Sprawl, and no one knows how to stop it... except one. *Experimental Pre-Game One-Shot based on Dead Space 2*


**Roads**  
**A Dead Space 2 Fan Fiction One-Shot**  
**Written by Leks Bronks**

* * *

3 years had passed since the ill-fated Ishimura terrorist attack.

3 years and 14 hours, to be exact, before the very first virus outbreak was reported aboard the Sprawl.

And it spread fast. Faster than anything ever seen by the eyes of human medical science. It swept the population by storm. No one knew what was going on.

Almost no one.

The significance of those last 14 hours before the initial outbreak was that she had known. Her patient, the Ishimura's lone survivor rescued from the depths of space, had told her first-hand about what was going to happen.

_Samara had not listened. They were all going to suffer for it should she fail to follow the right road now._

She stared at the hololock.

_Should she open it...?_

* * *

"Oh, god Samara... We've got to get the _fuck_ off this thing!"

Dr. Samara Yasmin's heart rate multiplied as she felt the urgency in Dr. Charles Wright's voice. Being two of only a sparse handful of survivors who had managed to make it to the safety of the medical laboratory during the largest wave in the necromorph pandemic aboard the Sprawl, they were now trapped within it, desperately seeking their next move. They had no idea how enduring or powerful the virus or its makeshift monsters might have been, and whether the safety of the laboratory would hold was questionable. Samara looked up at Wright and responded with a heightening cry.

"Charles... what the hell is going on?"

Wright at first could only respond with an incredulous shake of his head, staring blankly at the floor as the recollections of what they had just seen pursuing them came back to him. He fell silent as he became lost to her, and only after she managed to stir him back to reality with several stern taps upon his shoulders did he finally avail her of his warning.

"Look - communications are useless here... just, STAY HERE! Don't leave this goddamn room. I'm gonna go get some help... Just, promise me you won't leave this lab, Samara! And for God's sake, don't open that fucking door for anyone, you got it?"

Samara was speechless, staring wide eyed at her colleague as she saw the sheer helplessness in his ironically strong, stout face.

_First, the symptoms. Then, the sickness. Now... _

She barely had time refute his decision before he had already turned his back, withdrew the divet from his holster and darted from the room, opening the door and cautiously peering down the hallway in both directions before stepping out into it. As Samara looked out the doors during their brief period they were open in Wright's wake, she could see the ghastly silhouettes of several dead bodies covering the floor at his feet.

_... Complete chaos._

Feeling overwhelmed and unable to bear the burden of her terror any longer Samara's eyes fell to the floor and filled with tears. In the isolation of the patient ward she began sobbing into her hands, wondering with fearful despondency what horrifying death awaited her, and when.

_Oh, God... please, help us._

Perfectly on cue, as if in direct response to her silent prayers by some unseen hand, Samara suddenly heard a soft, repetitive rapping coming from down the hall in the direction of the patient quarantine cells. She immediately looked up, and as she again heard the patterned knocking a second time her eyes fell upon the door to Isaac Clarke's cell at the end of the way. Samara wiped her tears away and dropped the hand she had pressed to her mouth, and lured by a budding intrigue she slowly, hesitantly began to make her way down the hall toward the door. The knocking continued in a series of three light raps followed by an equal interval of silence until she approached close enough to the small observation window to see inside - and likewise, Isaac within could see her. As her eyes met his through the small, thick paned glass slot, she saw as his face gently stretched with a dark, eager smile on the other side.

_"There something wrong... Doctor?"_

Samara furrowed her brow at his taunting provocation.

"I was... going to ask you the same thing, Isaac. Do you need something?"

She continued to eye him. He shifted his focus from right to left, and his face folded into serious contemplation.

_"Yeah, actually. I was wondering if you've had time to think about what I told you this morning."_

Samara froze on the spot, terrified to even move. In the silence that followed, her ears barely detected the muffled sounds of pandemonium breaking out just beyond the laboratory doors behind her, the thunderous trodding of dozens of people, all scurrying about the in the wake of an impending armageddon that had unknowingly come upon them. She began to shiver involuntarily, finding it difficult to maintain eye contact with Isaac as his magnetic glare seemed to burn right through her fragile shell like heated plasma. Still, as his overseeing practitioner, it was important that she do her best to keep her patient calm, even at the cost of implausible denial.

"It was just a dream, Isaac. Dreams don't mean anything."

He closed his eyes and slowly withdrew until his penetrating visage through the observation window became obscured among the shadows of his cell.

_"This is not a dream, Doctor."_

"Isaac, what are you talking about? You're not making any sense."

She was by this point standing next to the door, leaning against it with weakening resolve. Though she felt she was becoming inappropriately close under the circumstances, she could not resist the energy she felt drawing her in from behind the door, as much as she tried to refuse it.

"Everything is... fine. Nothing's... wrong. We'll... talk about it later, ok?"

_"I know what's happening. So do you."_

Her eyes slightly widened, not quite sure if she had heard him correctly. His already deadpan, low keyed voice was filtered even further by the thick gauged glass of the observation window to his cell, making it difficult for her to hear what he was saying. She leaned into the observation window, frantically scanning the inside of his room for him.

"What did you say?"

A moment of silence was broken by a quiet, taunting snicker.

_"Your Ascension draws near."_

Samara's jaw dropped. Again, the disturbing, rampant sounds of desperation were heard outside the laboratory doors, and sensing the confirmation of their predicament she shook her head with disbelief and looked back in through the window. She suddenly saw Isaac had reappeared from out of the dark, piercing his burning glare through her eyes as he gently rocked back and forth on his heels with a single hand pressed to the glass on one side. Though several inches of solid glass separated them, it proved as no barrier to their conversation as Samara could very clearly read the words written upon his lips... and hear his voice, loud and resounding, inside her head.

_Open the door_.

Again, Samara paused and shook her head, and apprehensive she took a step back from the door.

"I, I can't do that…"

She was again seized by Isaac's dark, enigmatic glare from behind the observation window, locked upon her in concentration.

_Yes, you can, Doctor._

"Isaac… I cannot do that. I'm sorry, but I just can't."

He tilted his head, briefly capturing the artificial light of the lab's overhead lights in the glossy black spheres of his eyes.

_You have to let me out, Samara. You know what it is that I have to do. I can't help unless you open the door._

Though it didn't quite occur to her at that moment, Samara slowly began to lose the abillity to physically control herself, eventually slowing then stopping her retreat altogether. She unwittingly relented to an invading force within the confines of her mind the longer she stared into Isaac's mysteriously alluring gaze, which was accompanied by a small, dry smile across his lips.

_If you don't let me out... Then you are all doomed._

Samara remained deadlocked upon him, finding herself simply entranced and imprisoned by his stare upon her. Her ears were again met with the fleeting sounds of chaos beyond the laboratory doors getting louder as the homicidal melee within the Sprawl drew ever closer and her doubt in everything she had come to believe in began to fully manifest itself. Isaac's emboldening gaze upon her through the observation window further sparked her to revisit the options she had before her. Her eyes briefly shot to the hololock upon Isaac's cell.

_She had not listened. Now, they were all going to suffer for it should she fail to follow the right road now._

She stared at the hololock.

_Should she open it...?_

At the prompt of a tiny voice inside her head, she glanced down at her hands and blinked.

_Make us whole._

Suddenly and without hesitation, Samara reached for her access card and pressed it to the hololock. The lock instantly deactivated, and the very second Isaac detected the power lost to the mechanism he gently pushed the door open. He calmly strode out until he stood before Samara, who up to this point had not moved from her spot as if cemented to it like a statue. After staring her down in discomfiting silence for several long moments, he finally relented and broke a small smile.

"Good girl."

Her eyes shot up at him like dark little bullets, filled with a sense of astonishment. The hairs upon her arms stood on end at the electrostatic stir of his proximity to her, but still she said nothing, bound to silence by the ominously controlling grip Isaac held upon her. She merely stared blankly ahead as he looked her over, reached up and gently stroked the side of her face as her breath halted at his touch. He hovered just before her, causing her to sweat in the anxiety of his contact, then looked down at the insufficient coverage of his scant, paper thin medical robe and bare feet.

"Where can find something a little more... conservative, huh?"

Samara blinked, still drowning in the intoxication of his inexplicable enchantment upon her, and she pointed with a weak, shaking finger towards the laboratory doors.

"I... I'd think you'll want to try, uh... Maintenance. Level, D... if you're looking for what you're used to. Or, I don't know... maybe at this point..."

She slowly looked back as yet another cacaphony of sound pounded against the doors, accompanied by muffled screams, then she looked back to Isaac.

"... You should try the P-SEC Armory. It's... it's..."

Her heavy hand fell again to her side and she partially collapsed against him, unable to hold herself up on her feet. Isaac grinned devilishly as she placed her weight upon him and fell silent, unable to even finish her response as the overwhelming poison of his influence upon her robbed her of all her energy. He slowly helped her across the room and placed her down gently upon a chair, watching as her chest began to rise and fall with exasperated breaths, and after looking her over one last time, smiled and took the access card from her hand.

"Thank you, sweetheart. I appreciate everything you've done for me. But for now, you've done your part."

Once she was safely braced in her seat Isaac immediately withdrew from her side and headed for the laboratory doors, pausing only once to close his eyes and partake of the incessant, nearly obsessive chanting of the Marker that tugged at his brain. He could hear the sounds emanating from outside of the medical deck - the screams of agony and evacuation inducing terror, the inhuman, maniacal snarls of creatures beyond the realm of comprehension paired in dire harmony with the sickening, visceral sounds of tearing flesh, all endlessly blanketed with the constant, steady morse code of intermittent weapons fire dispatched throughout the ship.

It all made him think of the beautiful Red Marker. And it all made him smile.

* * *

Samara had no idea how long she had been unconscious before she found herself being shaken violently by feverish, crazed hands. As her outer senses began to come back to life, she heard the gradual evolution of a voice in her ears, yelling at her over and over.

"Samara... Samara! Wake up! Are you allright? Samara!"

She finally snapped back from her daze and blinked her eyes a few times. Her focus finally sharpened upon her colleague Dr. Charles Wright, standing over her with a wide eyed look of extreme terror spilled across his face. He was spattered all over with blood and grotesque bodily matter, and his shirt was torn by what appeared to be very large claw marks. She frowned with dismay as she saw the effects of the virus already having taken its toll upon him, the pockets of his eyes having already darkened and his overall countenance appearing frail and degenerated. Still, his grip upon her was strong with fear that immediately evolved into tremendous relief as he came to realize that she was alive. His yellowed eyes widened and he sighed deeply.

"Oh, thank god you're okay... Did he do anything to you, huh?"

Samara shook her head, confused, and looked at him.

"...Isaac?"

"Yes, he escaped!"

"No... I, I let him free."

Wright immediately froze, and turned an absolutely astonished stare to her.

"You_... what?"_

Samara hesitated.

"I... I let him out. To help us. He knows what he has to do, Charles. He can help us. He can help all of us."

Wright slowly pressed his hands to the sides of his head, overwhelmed by what he was hearing.

"I... I don't beleive this... You... you're kidding, right? You're joking... Please, tell me you didn't set him free, Samara_. Please."_

Upon her dead silence, Wright emitted a small, agonized groan, on the verge of tears that quickly began to boil over into anger.

"No... NO! I can't believe... Oh, holy shit... We are all _fucked_, now! Don't you know that? Oh, god... oh... we are all fucking doomed..."

Samara was hardly moved by Wright's emotional display, confident that she had made the right decision. She closed her eyes and began to meditate upon the sweet, alluring sounds of the Marker's whispers, like an elegant sonata, that she suddenly started hearing in the back of her head.

_The Marker Will Set Us Free._

* * *

_[Begin A/N]  
I've been picking up little bits of DS2 here and there, and I just got excited, that's all. I don't really know a whole lot about it, I'm just working with my imagination so please don't hold me to the details. I'm sure that then DS2 comes out this little one-shot will be "shot down" plotwise (no pun intended), so I'll just say that I felt the need to run with it while everything is still up in the air before the game comes out. :D _

_Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.  
[End A/N]_


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